Block Party

Embarking in another journey with Machine Quilting Block Party 2016  by Leah Day last January was thrilling, but at the same time rolling just to be able to keep up. Today I sewed the label and just in time for Christmas. A gift for my son who loves those bright warm colours.

The mystery quilt used traditional blocks but teaches you how to use the newest technique for assembling your pieces and cutting them with minimum waste of fabric.  All throughout the 12 blocks, you learned new designs, some are repeated in other blocks, but for the most part, you have lots of different ones to try out. The blog makes it fun and interesting and to see other quilters struggled where you struggled or others perfecting their quilting with a touch of creativity.

On the left side: Yellow, orange, and red are from the original. The bottom is for backing
On the right side: Fabric from my stash.

It was nice to see my first blocks in both selections.  After the fact I had purchased all the fabrics required by the pattern, I realized that I could have simply dig through my stash and save money for something else.*laugh*

 

The selecting thread can be simple or difficult if we have too many choices. I used Isacord thread. Before quilting my first blocks,  I tested the thread of my choices on a smaller piece of the same fabric.

Chain sewing is one of my favourite way to get the most of my sewing time. The pattern had a lot of flying geese and figured out how NOT to sew over my points. Easy enough you think, but I got a problem with that one until I figured what I was doing wrong.  When you sew your 1/4 " seams, make sure the point is NOT in it. Do not sew over the point or before it.  Otherwise, your point is gone in the seam allowance. Another trick, I sew the allowance on the point side, so I know exactly where it is.

There is many cheap ways you can make a lightbox. If you don't have room to store such a box, maybe something like this would be good enough.

My husband found this light kit at Costco. The glass is from an old coffee table. Very thick and large enough for a 15" x15" block.

It looking good.

 Original

 From my stash

Another successful year of fun!

Quilter4Him

New Season with Block of the Month

My ambitions to know more and more about quilting can leave me undecided about what I want to sew next or bother to finish my already existing project. There are so many great patterns, techniques, and fabrics available and so inspiring, it becomes hard not to start anything new. What about you? Do you finish one project before starting another one or do you quilt, quilt, quilt until you drop? *smile*

Usually, by September, most of my project is nearly completed and move on to a new pattern or FM exercises for the Fall/Winter season. This Fall is not going to happen as I've at least 3 small quilt to quilt and my Rosette #2 to compete and move on to Rosette #3 (English paper pieces).

Even with all those projects in the queue, I'm starting other ones. I just can't help it!! One is our Block of the Month with our guild. The perfect project to extend my FM experience I've learned these last five years with Leah Day and Angela Walter.  With their books available in hands or their videos on YouTube, I can simply enjoy my time doing it. What helped me in the past is setting goals and getting it done by that time, but at my own pace. It so encouraging and gratifying when one quilt is done:)


I saw two of those blocks hanging at a quilt show this summer and fall in love with the colours and purchased the package which that is a first for me. It's a paper piecing, something I'm not familiar with or enjoy doing, but  I'll have to overcome my fear, because I really, really, love this pattern.
What are your plans for this coming Fall/Winter?
 Mine is crazy!!
This is one of them and I'm hoping with the help of my quilting friends, I received the guidance and support I'll need for this one.

The book offers a different background and fabric option. I'm thinking of doing the one with a darker background.

 I found this drawing tablet at Costo and used the same colouring pens for it. Something doing another activity is fun.

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Those are the Batiks that were with the package.

 I'll use my stash for my other block-of-the-Month and will try to keep you posted on my adventure.

Let's stash away...with our scraps too!
God bless:)

Modernised Disapearing Nine Patch

Well, it has been a long time since I've posted something. Being an outdoor person, you'll often times see me outside rather than inside. Besides quilting, gardening and walking my dog in trails during the summer are a few of my favourite things to do.

 The unfinished quilt is left abandon for a short time, but I've at less one hand-sewing project for the summer. This way when returning to my studio in September my mind is renewed with vibrated energy and plenty of ideas for the winter.

Last July with visited P.E.I, Maritime, and Nova Scotia for two weeks. It was wonderful and my husband and I want to go back in a few years. What about you? Do you continue quilting throughout the summer or take a break. Do you go on holiday with your family?  Or simply stay cool indoor during at hot days:)


This beautiful aqua/purple Batik quilt is for my daughter who wanted colours that would accentuated her curtains and also had a modern feel to it, and not so scrappy looking. That's were images on the internet help a lot to visualize what we wanted. I wanted simple and fast. We wanted this quilt NOW.  After I spotted a simple modern pattern, I purchased it at Etsy.

Guess what...the pattern was a simple Disappearing Nine Patch. Only on a larger scale. I was a bit angry with myself for buying a pattern I could have designed myself, but in the end, it works to my favour as it had all the measurement and fabric requirements all laid out for me.

I  started the quilt at a retreat last April 2016.

The design I chose for this quilt are flames and was done by a local long-arm quilter. Then sewed the binding by hand. It's a beautiful aqua/purple Batik. Only need a label and voila!

Until September...Happy Summer and God bless it:)

Layer Cake & Fat Quaters

When you fall in love with the fabric that is already prepacked, what do you do with it? If you're like me, I purchased it, because it was a super great deal or love the colours, but most of the time I stashed it away because I had no plan for it.

They come in different sizes and shapes, from squares, strip, hexagons, and bundles. There are very fun for small projects and if you don't won't think too much about a colour them, then you're set with one of those.

This quilt was made using an FQ bundle I purchased for its bright colours. Eventually, I didn't like it much and tossed it aside. When we did one of our share-workshop, I grabbed the bundle, thinking nothing worse could happen to it, then staying hidden in a bin.

It turned out quite beautiful. Someone suggested I did flying geese in opposite corners. The pattern was called Magic Tiles. Another interesting technique was available on the internet. Our guild uses a simple version that was easy for everyone to complete in a day. This was my first attempt at sewing flying geese...without instruction or pattern.

 

Some times we don't purchase kids, they're given to us. What then! These fat quarters of green, pink, and floral were from the goody-bag I received from our quilt day out and purchased the black to accented those light colours. Of course, they're always chocolates.

Our retreat was around the corner and decided to fish for a cute and simple pattern and used them as they were not really my favourite fabric, certainly not the large black-floral.

Multi-Faceted Charm Pack Quilt

     The result was so beautiful, I would sell it at our Studio Fair next fall. Imagine that *smile*, For now, I need to plan the FM for both quilts. You can find this pattern at Moda Bake Shop

Horsin' Around

Spring is here earlier this year, at least a full month, and with most of my weekends booked, it's no wonder I had no time left for posting my latest jams. With a bit of drive though, I managed to complete the Dancing Butterfly Quilt Pattern by Leah Day. Another quilt-as-you-go.

There are a total of 12 large blocks and 24 smaller ones to FM. Lots of fun learning new designs. Some are easier then others, but overall, if you break it into sections has, it's feasible. I'll strongly suggest if you have no or little experience with FM, that you practice a few designs with Free Motion Quilting Design Gallery

 Even after many years of FM, I still found myself pulling, tugging, or guiding my blocks that left ugly stitches in the back. They may not show on the front, but they certainly do in the back. My mind tends to tend to speed up in the curves. Seriously,  programming your mind to SLOW down isn't the easiest thing at times when you want to finish a quilt. *laugh*. What did helped me performed nicer stitches in those curves, not always, is I listened to music or something with a soft rhythm.  If everything fails, I lower my speed on my sewing machine, which I don't favour.

 The 1st and 2sd row in the back. See the ugly stitches pulling away. Need to slow down in the curves. 

 The 3rd row in the back. Much improvement:)

  A design wall would be so nice, but closet doors work...okay

               And floor certainly are wonderful *smile*

 It took about three months to complete this quilt by modifying the pattern. Instead of butterflies, I used panels with horses. Someone if my family will be delighted with this Horsin' Around quilt.

All done with my stash of fabrics. Love it!

Let's Stash Away another quilt!

New Hexagon: The beginning

English Paper piecing hasn't changed much  since it started. We still used paper at the back of fabric to gave it's shape. Many are still using the "old technique"  by basting threat through the layers to hold its shape in place, some like me, prefer using fabric glue to turn the edges.

Not in my dreams would I've ever thought of falling in love with EPP (English Paper Piecing). What's wrong with me! Is it not enough what I had already on my plate with FM practice, share-workshop, Quilt-Day-Out, and not to mentioned reorganizing my stash of fabric (Again? Yes, again!). Anyhow, here I'm loving it and enjoyed sewing the smaller pieces by hand and can be carried it with me wherever I go.


The pattern is gorgeous beyond description and I'm very proud of being part of the Katja Marek FB group, where so many talented people are sharing work. Very inspiring.

Katja Marek is a Canadian quilt-shop owner and is the author of The New Hexagon. In her book, she gives basic instructions for EPP and quilt-making. You can find 52 different blocks (hexagons). All the hexagons are different. A shape inside a shape.

My choice of colour theme for this one was to pick some blues, greens, purple, and spark of accent. Staying within the boundary of my stash was difficult and I had to play quite a lot with my fabric. As you see, my combination changed more than once.

Eliminating some fabric or adding some.

What a dashing accent!

Time to washed, starched and pressed the fabric.

Small mirrors put together at an angle can help you visualized your next blocks.

Photocopying the pattern onto 67-pound cover stock paper for all you EPP. It a good idea to have clear plastic for templates.

It took me awhile to organize all the five different blocks for my rosettes #1. With all my pieces label and store in an On-the-Go box, it's time to sew.

This was my first trying out. The center of my first hexagon didn't go as well with my fabric and had to go back to the "stash-board" and played once more with my fabric.

This time I  focused on rosette #1 for the colour choices. It was much better. 

This is a preview of all the 37 hexagons that are in rosette #1. The largest of the 12 rosettes to make for this entire quilt.  Isn't it satisfying when you can create something pretty with your own stash? Hurry, looked into your own stash is see if you can come up with something beautiful and creative.

Let's go stash away!!

 I shall update the rosette #1 when it's completed.
UPDATE

April 2, 2016
Rosette #1 completed!

No Sewing Until You Quilt it

 Imagine gluing your applique pieces instead of sewing them. That's what Ann Holmes teaches in her book.  My knowledge of applique is very basic but didn't turn away from this challenge.  A technique that is entirely different from what you might from have learned in the past.

This is one of my sketches and decided to use it for my experiment. To my delight my local library owned a copy of  No Sewing Until You Quilt It by Ann Holmes and without delay, I started working on a small project following her guideline and using one of my own drawings.  Meantime I ordered her book and DVD kit.

  After I draw a few sketches in my tablet, with hills and clouds less defined, so the FM would be more manageable. Then I scanned it into my computer and used EQ6 for the final size for my pattern.

Now that I have my "Working Drawing" (pattern as Ann Holmes calls it), then it's timed to number each piece and add registration marks. You have to trace a copy into Freezer Paper too.

 Each piece are cut then pressed on your fabric. Not the usual way, so make sure you follow Holmes's direction for this step.

 The reveal is the fun part! You peeled off the Freezer Paper and discover what laid under. Well, for my first attend, a few things went wrong here. Remember that was my pattern, not Holmes, so I guessed it's okay

One green fabric I really didn't like and changed it. The small clouds were clumsily turned. The sun blended to much with the sunset. The whole sky is wrong, wrong, wrong. Okay, I'm not an artist, but a quilter *laugh*  No problem, with all the pieces already pre-cut on Freezer Paper, it was easy to restart the whole thing. I didn't have too, but I wanted to practice.

  My sunset was to orangy for my liking. Crayons fixed the problem. The Crosses were satin stitched. The far away road was quilted with thread.

A simple way to finish a small project, it's to frame it.  Voila!!

This project was entirely done with scraps.

Now it's your turn to try it:)

Let's go stash away!!

Canada Eh?

My challenge project is completed with our most famous Canadian symbols. I wanted a simple pattern so that I could focus on the FM (free-motion) quilting, instead of worrying about it and so used most of the FM design ideas I already learned from the Building Block by Leah Day.

  EQ6 was very useful to create a simple pattern. The middle box was left empty in purpose, because I wanted to add a Canadian flag pattern, which didn't worked so well in a square. So I change that idea for another as you'll see below.

All the silhouettes were found from various websites. Many thanks go to those artistic people.  I couldn't have made this quilt in this short time. On the contrary, it would have taken me months of frustration to accomplish something similar to that. So thank you again:)

My backgrounds are in yellow/orange Batik, which reminded me of our beautiful Fall in  Canada.

 Threads can be a challenge for quilters when it comes to choosing a thread that will be nice with our quilt. Depending on what you want to accomplish with your FM quilting. A light colour thread on light fabric will not reveal as much of your stitches then if you had to take a darker colour thread. In the past, I always used threads that "blended in", with my fabric to hide my stitches, but now I love to "showcase" my FM quilting, even if they are imperfect stitches.

This was a design I found on the website and duplicated it on fabric. As you can see, some of my FM quilting is from the same design that was used in the Building Block by Leah Day. It helps something to focus on our FM when we used the same designs in another project.

My Silhouettes were fused on back of the black fabric, then cut out before fusing them on the Batik.

 Then the blocks were FM individually, then  squared them all to their final size 13" x 13" squares.

Same technique for the Building Block: Quilt-as-you-Go. I'm starting loving this alot.

After I laid my blocks on the floor for a final look, guessed who came snoozing on it. Yep, the dog!

Front

Back

Size is 39" x 39".

Another project done. Yahoo!

Let's go stash away!